


Refraction

by Scythe



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Felix Hugo Fraldarius Being an Asshole, Fraldarius-Centric, How Do I Tag, M/M, Mentioned Glenn Fraldarius, Original side characters, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Ratings and tags WILL change with future chapters, Rodrigue's Parenting, rumors of death have been exaggerated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-22 15:35:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scythe/pseuds/Scythe
Summary: Second chances are rare, but humans love to make the same mistakes again.Felix shook his head, reminding himself that he didn’t believe in ghosts. There was only one Felix Hugo Fraldarius, and against all expectations—even his own—he was alive.“Here I am,” he said quietly, and the wind carried it softly into the night.Loosely continues off Felix and Sylvain's Verdant Wind ending.





	Refraction

**Author's Note:**

> So the plan at first was to write something that paints Rodrigue in a more favorable light as a father and explore the Fraldarius family dynamics, but I got carried away so I guess now this is going to be a multichapter work with Sylvain moping for the first chapter. I'm eager to get to all the Fraldarius related shenanigans as Felix slowly works to mend the things he left broken by wandering off in his non-BL ending with Sylvain. Some of the tags are for future chapters but there will definitely be more and the rating will change.

Perhaps it was because Sylvain held those memories so dear to his heart, but he would sometimes forget that Felix was no longer the teary-eyed child that clung to him whenever any little thing would upset him. Felix was bold, bolder than he was, and more rash despite what many would say about Sylvain’s proclivity for throwing himself at danger. Faerghus had a saying about cutting a path forward, and Felix was a sharp-pointed epitome of it.

Felix dared where Sylvain hesitated.

It was a poorly kept secret amongst the Blue Lions that Sylvain hated the responsibilities and expectations that came with being the crest-bearing heir of one of Faeghus’s most prominent houses, and it was anyone’s guess why he didn’t surrender his title like other Garreg Mach graduates had done before him. Sylvain sometimes questioned that himself, but he was never able to break the uneasy peace he had with his father, stalling in his indecision until Edelgard was defeated, Claude vanished into Almyra, and his father saw fit to relinquish the title of Margrave to his son.

Felix was recalcitrant and decisive. His fraying relationship with his father finally snapped under the added strain of restlessness and cynicism (and secret grief), culminating in an act that Sylvain had fantasized about committing for years: he left. Sylvain shook his head in disbelief at the news, but it should not have surprised him; he’d always both admired and envied his friend for that unflinching resolve.

No one heard from the swordmaster in the months after he stormed out of Fraldarius, leaving behind his title, his lands, and apparently his friends, judging by how meticulously adept he was at avoiding his old classmates. In his wake, stories of a swordsman who hunted for battle and never met defeat spread like blood out of an open wound.

Fódlan was in an uncertain state under a thin veneer of unification, and conflicts erupted frequently. Sensing weakness in their neighbors, Sreng increased their efforts against Gautier borders, necessitating the use of mercenaries. Sylvain eagerly kept his gates open to willing sellswords with the hope that Felix would one day take the open invitation to show amongst them.

A foolish hope, but one rewarded, only once, on a frigid winter morning.

Sylvain sent a messenger to Ingrid as soon as he saw Felix’s hood shuffling into his castle with his new hires. It would take her a few days to respond, but until then, he could—

“You let him go?!” Ingrid’s voice echoed in the austere Castle Gautier lobby. She was breathing hard from travel, flecks of fresh snow still sparkling on the fur tufts of her armor. Sylvain had to admire how quickly she crossed from Galatea in Faerghus winter, but it was still too late. Felix had left the night before. 

“Sorry, I’ve never been good at saying ‘no’ to Felix.” His lips crinkled sheepishly in an approximation of an apologetic smile, and he ran his fingers through his hair. Maybe that was why Felix was willing to meet him and no one else.

“I wish you’d have at least tried to stop him, even if you only got him to stay long enough for me to get here...” Ingrid sighed loudly, a puff of exasperation and worry that rose visibly into the cold. “Maybe he came to you because he wanted you to stop him. Everyone knows he trusts you the most.”

“I did try,” Sylvain retorted, taking offense. He had physically blockaded Felix at first, using sweet words and then harsh words and then sweet words again as bricks in a fortress. How quickly this fortress crumbled at a mere touch, a light kiss, and an ‘I’ll remember our promise,’ vowed so quietly that Sylvain only discerned it because he already knew the words.

Words. He, of all people, should have known not to trust words. But it was Felix, and he was weak when it came to Felix.

“I couldn’t talk him into staying. What else could I have done?” Sylvain sounded every bit as miserable as he felt.

“Anything! Sit on him?” Sylvain would not put it past Ingrid to use his superior weight to bodily restrain Felix if she had been in his shoes and had the advantage of his size; he had heard of the extreme measures Ingrid had used on Bernadetta’s door when they were still students. She tilted her head back and looked at the ceiling, her bright spring eyes watery like they were on the verge of tears, even though there was nothing worth crying over. Not yet.

“I’m not trying to blame you,” Ingrid said more softly, sensing that her agitation was coloring her voice. “I’m just so worried. What if he’s looking for something terrible and he finds it before we find him?”

Ingrid’s blame notwithstanding, Sylvain would come to remember that day with guilt. Not because of Ingrid though; he had long grown immune to her lectures. He didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time he saw his dearest friend.

Still, he waited for Felix to come back. _Everyone knows he trusts you the most._ He used to be proud of that. Trust wasn’t supposed to feel like a burden. _Felix trusted me not to refuse him, and I didn’t disappoint_, his thoughts supplied traitorously.

_You let him go?!_ Not a day passed that Sylvain didn’t hear that question, ringing with Ingrid’s signature accusatory tone, somewhere in his thoughts. On the days when he was busy or when he was too exhausted to think, it echoed distantly in the background. When there were no distractions to hide behind, it resonated, angry and loud.

The guilt seeped in by degrees, followed by regret, for every new story about the warrior whose swordsmanship knew no equal, who wielded wild lightning as effortlessly as a draw of breath. The feats they told of him grew ever more impressive and dangerous, and Sylvain would think back on an ugly truth he had known since the night Felix left Castle Fraldarius. Felix, for all the vitriol he spat about the boar prince, was looking for Dimitri—for Dimitri’s forgiveness—but Dimitri was dead, so his path to absolution had only one destination.

He already knew. Somewhere along the line during his wait, a black fear crept into his room, bleeding through the cracks in his windows and doors, and stained his eagerness for the day Felix would return. Dread, bottomless and consuming like the grasp of the ocean, stole away and replaced his hopes.

By the time the small solemn procession entered his gates and he received them at his front steps, he was ready. He was ready in the way doomed men were ready to die, which is to say not really, but they’ve convinced themselves that they’ve made peace with the inescapable. That was why he could accept the sword, reverently wrapped in Fraldarius colors, with a steady hand and thank the men at his door with a steady voice. He was gracious, like a Margrave should be, until he closed the door and he was alone in the vast hallway stifling in its emptiness.

See, when a man knows he is to die and he dies, then he simply dies. He doesn’t get to find out he wasn’t ready after all.

Sylvain found out he wasn’t ready after all.

* * *

Lord Rodrigue chose a small private ceremony in the Fraldarius family cemetery, even though Felix abandoned his house and, as far as Sylvain knew, did not part amicably with his father. There was no body; all that came back of Felix was a sword and ill news. _Just like Glenn_, Rodrigue was sure to be thinking. The Duke looked like he’d aged ten years; worry and stress carved deep into the lines of his otherwise handsome face, and the grey streaks in his hair had increased dramatically. Nonetheless, he greeted the few attendees politely and gracefully as befit his station.

At his heel stood a man Sylvain recognized as Theodore, Rodrigue’s younger brother. His expression was pinched in a tight scowl, his lips pressed thin as though he were holding back a diatribe he was saving for very particular ears. His countenance softened upon seeing Ingrid and Sylvain enter their loose ring of mourners, clinging tightly to one another.

Byleth was already there, her face characteristically impassive, though as the acting ruler of Fódland she must have stepped on a few toes to clear her day for personal matters. Bernadetta stood at her side, with Annette, Mercedes, and Ashe across. Dorothea arrived moments later, slotting herself next to Sylvain. Lysithea was last to arrive with news that she could not track down Leonie quickly enough for the mercenary to make it. 

“Seteth and Flayn send their regrets and their condolences,” Byleth added, and the service began. 

Sylvain had only vague memories of the actual service. He was still in a daze, and the words went into one ear and out the other as his emotions floundered in his ribs. This wasn’t what he had expected. Felix had made him a promise, reminded him of it every time he did something stupid, and used it against him without remorse. Yet it was Felix who had broken that promise, shattering it so mercilessly that he didn’t even leave behind a corpse for Sylvain to shake and scream at.

His attention snapped back as the casket was lowered into the ground. He imagined himself jumping in with it and confessing all the things he should have said to Felix when he had the chance. He imagined begging Felix to either wake up or take him too, because they promised to go together. Ingrid’s grip tightened around his arm, and he wondered if he’d physically leaned forward. She held him as the dirt piled, shovel by shovel, over what was essentially an empty box.

Byleth looked on thoughtfully, her green eyes unblinking as the last of the earth was smoothed over. Distantly, Sylvain wondered what she was thinking, but he wouldn’t remember until much later.

The old Garreg Mach students huddled together, while Theodore broke into an argument with Rodrigue in hushed whispers.

“Do you think Duke Fraldarius would let us plant this somewhere near here?” Ashe asked quietly. He’d brought with him an oak seedling.

“I don’t see why not.” Annette looked around. “With all of us pitching in, it should take root easily here.”

Sylvain spotted the fertilizing concoction in Annette’s hand and some gardening tools in Bernadetta’s pouch and realized the lot of them had thought this out beforehand. His first, knee-jerk reaction was being offended that they hadn’t consulted him—Felix was _his_ closest friend after all. Then he remembered that he had barricaded himself inside his room until that very morning. Well, he wasn’t the most help in the greenhouse either, so it wasn’t as though he could have contributed anything.

“We could just ask,” said Mercedes, the voice of reason. She strode to the Fraldarius brothers, the others shuffling behind her like shy children.

“—the time, Theo. I buried both my sons,” Rodrigue was saying, weariness wrung through every syllable. 

“You buried both my nephews!” Theo hissed back heatedly, his voice cracking with anger and anguish. “If you had—” He cut himself off upon seeing Mercedes approach and gestured for Rodrigue to turn.

Sylvain ended up near Theo while Mercedes and Rodrigue discussed the matter of the seedling. They regarded each other, both calculating whether they could hold their composure well enough to speak.

“I heard Felix met with you sometime in his self-imposed exile,” Theo started. 

Theo’s voice naturally had a clipped, sharp cadence that contrasted heavily against Rodrigue’s smooth, calm one. It matched their tempers well, but now Sylvain wasn’t sure if Theo meant his statement as an accusation. “He did,” he said simply. He considered adding that Felix also bequeathed him the Sword of Moralta, but Theo likely already knew.

“I’m glad he had you in his life.”

Sylvain blinked.

“I know it wasn’t easy,” Theo continued. “My brother is the same. It doesn’t matter how many times you piece him together, he’ll run back out and…” He kept his voice steady, but his breath wavered. “Look, you did everything you could. You may not be certain of it, but I am.”

The others began planting the seedling. Sylvain hesitated. He wasn’t great around plants; plants could not be fooled by smiling faces and honeyed words. Plants knew him for what he was—they shriveled and wilted at his touch.

“The decision to do nothing is also a decision,” Sylvain said. “I was the only one who had the chance to stop him, and I fucked it up. It doesn’t matter how much I did for him if I was too weak when it mattered most.”

Theo slowly reached up and put a hand on Sylvain’s shoulder, and motioned towards Felix’s friends with the other. “You believe any one of them could have held him back had they been in your place.” It wasn’t a question.

“Most of them,” Sylvain supplied ambiguously.

“Felix wasn’t as stupid as he pretended to be. He knew very well you loved him too much to stop him.” Sylvain shifted uncomfortably, but Theo continued. “Like father, like son. Ultimately, their decisions are their own and their fate is of their own making, not ours. It took me a long time to accept that.”

Sylvain didn’t accept that, but he didn’t want to continue the conversation. “It’s not like I have another chance to prove one way or the other,” he shrugged equivocally, using the movement to wiggle away from Theo, “so I guess we’ll never know.”

* * *

Sylvain kept the sword in his own room. It would make Felix angry if he’d hung it out on display with the other Gautier treasures. Felix hated glorification. That’s what Sylvain would say, and people would nod, because anyone who knew Felix knew that to be true. However, the real reason was his stomach twisted whenever he looked at it, and Margrave Gautier could not be seen getting emotional over a sword.

This also meant he saw it every night when he was alone, and all the aches of the day piled heavily on his shoulders. He cleaned and maintained it frequently, ready for use at a moment’s notice. Not that he expected it to be used; it was simply a habit of his to clean things while he mulled over his thoughts. The weapon was a familiar feeling beneath his fingers now, the blade cold to the touch as though it were forged from the hard ice in the mountaintops. 

At first, Sylvain felt nervously defensive every time Rodrigue invited him to tea. It had been no secret that Felix’s sword had ended up in Sylvain’s hands, and the Sword of Moralta was a sacred weapon that served House Fraldarius for generations. Rodrigue had every right to ask for it and Sylvain knew that. But as Margrave, he could not refuse meetings because of something so trivial and selfish, so he steeled himself and arrived ready to defend the one thing Felix left for him.

However, Rodrigue never mentioned the sword. Rodrigue always showed up warm with tea and pleasantries, perfectly reading the cues to move from small talk to serious discussion about the management of their respective territories. He’d brought Itha under his wing in the absence of their traditional leaders, the Blaiddyds. Over time and many cups of tea, Sylvain loosened his guard enough to appreciate Rodrigue’s eloquence in diplomacy and leadership. Eventually, he even looked forward to tea with Rodrigue, eager to access the Duke’s wealth of knowledge and experience in the management of Faerghus. 

Over the seasons, Sylvain became a frequent presence on Fraldarius lands. Not only was he the acting Margrave of their Gautier allies, he made regular visits to Felix. He took advantage of every excuse to indulge in lying under the clouds next to Felix until the afternoon sun burned away into the horizon.

He would have thought it pathetic if he weren’t the one doing it—his eagerness to reach this quiet lonely spot, replace the flowers (usually his own from his previous visit), and simply lie down in the sparse shade of the tree that Ashe and the others had planted a few steps away. The oak was flourishing under the attentive care of several experienced hands, aided by magic, growing faster and fuller than any normal sapling of its age. He even caught Annette singing to it a few times. It was sturdy enough that Sylvain wasn’t afraid of disturbing it with his presence.

Sometimes he’d talk to Felix. He didn’t like the feeling of talking to himself, so he only resorted to this when he felt compelled to bare his soul; he’d never learned to trust anyone else to quite the same extent. His memory and imagination created a Spirit-Felix that gave the expected responses, usually a scathing remark with very little bite, or an equivocal ‘hn.’ Felix was good at seeing through lies, and he wasn’t afraid of calling Sylvain out on them. Spirit-Felix would tell him truths he didn’t want to admit; even the real one had never good at sugar coating things.

The earliest of these types of visits sometimes ended with Sylvain’s fists pounding on the grass, grief and resentment spilling in salty droplets, but that had long since stopped. Spirit-Felix had very little to say to that, and Sylvain understood the futility. Instead, Sylvain would confide in Felix about all the problems he had to deal with, major and trivial. He’d complain about the conniving nobles, gripe about all the work he had to do, and, very rarely, he’d despair that he couldn’t change anything after all. Sylvain always felt raw afterwards, though he could never quite place where or why.

Most of the time, Sylvain simply closed his eyes and let his consciousness drift away, thinking half-thoughts of times long lost. He might see Felix there too, as if Felix’s spirit manifested in his dreams more easily in this place. And why wouldn’t it? Sylvain sometimes wished he could see Felix when he was awake, but alas this ghost hated eye contact even in life; naturally, he would only appear if Sylvain closed his eyes.

* * *

At some point, Sylvain decided he wanted to warm his muscles again, and took to riding out to the front lines with his bannermen. His father disapproved but had no argument against the logic of using the Lance of Ruin where it was meant to be used: on the battlefield.

Sylvain was careful that no one could accuse him of chasing glory or having a death wish, but it would be remiss to deny flagrant recklessness. The desire to bleed and make bleed had festered in his veins until he found an outlet, and violence felt _good_. Where once he would call off his men as soon as the enemies made to retreat, he now ran down fleeing foes be they bandits or Srengi invaders or rogue crest beasts.

This time he’d chased a retreating Srengi squadron too far and too quickly; he realized too late that they started circling around to surround him. Luckily, he was saved by allied sniper fire. Arrows whizzed through the trees with lethal accuracy, shutting down one side of the pincer as he fought off the other side. It bought enough time for Ingrid to arrive with backup.

After they routed the invaders, Sylvain looked to thank the sniper, but they had disappeared into the brush before the skirmish had ended. He had not even gotten a look at their face to know whom to reward when they returned to the castle. Was it one of his men? One of the mercenaries? _Too good at their job_, Sylvain noted, and lamented that skill in warfare was still as valuable as it was during the height of the three-way conflict. 

Finally, back in the sanctity of his own room, he sank heavily into his chair, wincing slightly at the new wound on his leg. He didn’t mind it; the ache was comforting to him in a way he dared not articulate, and with the help of healing magic, it would mend soon enough.

He took the Sword of Moralta off its stand. Oiling it was almost a ritual now, and his fingers mechanically passed the cloth over the sacred steel, cold and familiar, as he settled into his ruminations. The weapon pulsed faintly in his grip, but he thought he imagined it. He was tired, and his hand shook.

* * *

“I heard stories that Glenn’s ghost haunts the cemetery,” Sylvain said offhandedly. Felix was one year buried now, and Sylvain was on one of his many visits to the Fraldarius estate. Over time, Sylvain had learned how shrewd Rodrigue was at maintaining appearances, how elegantly he walked the line between politeness and sincerity, by watching him maneuver through meetings when Byleth summoned all the noble houses. The Empire nobles were very pushy about the future of Fraldarius, pecking like vultures at its conspicuous lack of a young heir. The Duke held them at bay by drawing the Hevrings into the crossfire.

Rodrigue chuckled, low and smooth. “I’ve heard them too, but I wouldn’t believe them.”

“Don’t believe in ghosts?”

Rodrigue, too, had grown comfortable around Sylvain. Though he maintained his soft-spoken demeanor flawlessly from the very beginning, he was more willing to talk about himself and the past nowadays, an effect of his age and his familiarity with the much younger noble. “I neither subscribe to nor deny the existence of ghosts, as I’ve no proof of either. But Glenn was not the type to wander around a hole in the ground. Certainly, I would be his first target for revenge, and I have not seen a vengeful ghost stalking me.”

“You?” Sylvain blurted out. “Why you?”

“He was everything I asked him to be, achieved all I could have hoped for and more. He only asked of me one thing in return.” Rodrigue rubbed his temples with two fingers. “Then I broke that one promise to him even as his casket was lowered into the earth,” he finished. There was a hint of bitterness, or regret, or remorse; it was difficult to tell with Rodrigue. 

“What did you promise?” Sylvain pried.

Rodrigue’s icy blue eyes flicked to Sylvain, and he did not answer at first. Sylvain had to wonder if the promise was supposed to be a secret, but then why would it matter now, so many years later? The Duke’s gaze was strikingly similar to Felix’s; it saw clear through him, immune to facades. More than Felix’s, however, it was experienced and refined, able to ascertain subtleties so that Sylvain sometimes felt Rodrigue was reading minds.

Eventually, Rodrigue seemed to see what he was looking for. “Glenn loved his little brother more than anything. He asked me to take care of Felix since his duties as a knight would take him far from home for long periods. It was an easy promise to make, but not one I kept well.”

The words Sylvain meant to say caught in his throat, and he covered it up with a choked off laugh. Several thoughts crowded into his ribs at once, the strongest of which was an old monster that he could never seem to vanquish. Would Miklan have loved him half as much as Glenn loved Felix if Miklan had a crest of his own? It filled him with envy—envy at himself and the childhood he could have had if it weren’t for those accursed crests. It infuriated him that even now his thoughts flew so easily to Miklan many years later. The fact that Rodrigue read him well enough to expect this—which was probably why he hesitated—only embittered him more.

And what a farce it was for a father to have to make promises to take care of his own son—and still manage to break it so easily! He refocused his ire towards Rodrigue to hopefully push Miklan out of his thoughts. Sylvain waited until it became difficult for him to scrounge up any sympathy for the head of Fraldarius. “Yeah, he’d definitely haunt you first.”

Rodrigue smiled politely, observant of the venom in Sylvain’s reply. “There are many things I would have done differently had I the advantage of my current insights. However, true second chances are rare; after all, wisdom is valuable because of its steep price in mistakes.”

The implication was there, and it couldn’t have been an accident, not when it came from Rodrigue. They were both guilty of well-intentioned inaction. Notably, Rodrigue had never inferred he faulted Sylvain for his son’s fate, and Sylvain now wondered if it was because he understood _too well_.

A shiver trickled down his spine. Rodrigue’s icy scrutiny continued to pierce through him, and he didn’t like what he had to show underneath. Their faces were so alike, father and son—Felix would have stabbed him for voicing it, but the pain in his chest might as well have been a knife.

_I should have stopped him. I shouldn’t have let him leave._

“I envy a man with few regrets,” Rodrigue spoke up again, interrupting the start of Sylvain’s train of unhappy thoughts. He turned his attention to his tea, and Sylvain was thankful for that consideration. “But I only know how to ride forward.”

“And you’re very good at it. But no one strategy solves everything.”

Rodrigue nodded in assent.

* * *

Faerghus lands were cold, and Fraldarius was no exception. It was still autumn and the winds had yet to bring in the clouds for the winter season. The sky was clear and the stars shone coldly over the House Fraldarius cemetery. It was not the kind of night one would expect to see ghosts, but tonight, a ghost did grace the hilltop where the head family buried their own.

One could say the ghost that hovered over the grave of one Glenn Fraldarius was the young knight himself, so alike was he to the man whose memory was buried there. That was all there was; a memory, no body. Duke Fraldarius had said a sword was the only piece of Glenn that ever returned from the Tragedy of Duscur, and that sword hung with the highest honors and prestige in his castle.

Felix scoffed, mostly at himself. He had always been quick to draw the line between the living and the dead; he had only contempt for people who went on and on about doing anything _for the dead. _The dead didn’t care what the living did. And yet, he was the one who became Glenn’s shadow, lived Glenn’s life, and now he was haunting Glenn’s headstone, holding Glenn’s favorite flowers.

He bent down to clear the withered and dry bouquet away for his fresh ones. Glenn was well-liked by everybody in life; no one would ask questions if Felix’s flowers gave away that he had secret visitors in the night.

His eyes slid to the adjacent grave, the last in a long succession. The flowers there were fresh and twinkled with evening dew, Felix noted, which in itself shouldn’t be _too_ unusual on a grave, but…He looked long and hard at the name on the headstone. _Felix Hugo Fraldarius_. A man dead by his account, to be sure, and the casket below those velvety winking petals was as empty as Glenn’s.

He tried to be surprised that anyone still cared about an empty grave carrying that name—he thought he’d burned all his bridges—but no matter how reluctant he was to admit it, no matter how much he wished that everyone had moved on, he knew at least one person who would.

He stood up, his thoughts and his gaze still fixed upon his name. How many people ever had the chance to do something like this, to look upon their own grave and bury in the dirt all the pain they had in a life they never asked for? He could start anew, and no one had to know. He could walk away and leave behind all the misery and struggles that came with being Felix Hugo Fraldarius. But he had good things in his life too; they were few, yet dear enough to his heart that he would willingly open that box of anguish just to hold them again.

It was so liberating…and yet Felix also felt so lost. Was this what ghosts felt when they lingered around their worldly resting place? Did they haunt people and places because they realized they had nothing else to spend their freedom on?

Felix shook his head, reminding himself that he didn’t believe in ghosts. There was only one Felix Hugo Fraldarius, and against all expectations—even his own—he was alive.

“Here I am,” he said quietly, and the wind carried it softly into the night.

* * *

_I must be getting old_, Sylvain observed, self-reflecting on how frequently he thought about the past when he had the free time to lie under the sky and next to Felix.

“I can’t accept it, Felix,” Sylvain muttered, flat on the grass and his eyes closed against the sun. “The mere existence of my crest has dictated the value of my life since the day I was born, so why shouldn’t it give me the power to change things? All the fuss over a crest and I’m supposed to accept that the best I could achieve was to be someone else’s pawn? The most I could have done was stand by and…watch you walk away?”

He still hadn’t forgiven himself. He remembered with brutal clarity the day Felix had come to his castle, looking like a wraith warmed over. His cloak hung off his shoulders like bitter memories and his clothes clung to him like the regrets of those he killed—by then already a ruthless number. Combined with his gait, he gave the effect of a savage wolf. There was a hollow, dead look in his eyes, though it lifted a shade when Sylvain went out to meet him. He’d smiled, tired but sincere, and it made Sylvain hope.

“I was a fool,” Sylvain admitted to Spirit-Felix. He couldn’t discern if he was asleep or not, but it didn’t really matter. A cloud passed overhead, blocking out the sun. Its shadow was deep and lasted a gratifyingly long time.

_You always were a fool,_ Spirit-Felix agreed, sitting down next to Sylvain. He lay his head on the redhead’s shoulder. It was weightless, because Spirit-Felix wasn’t real, but it rang back to that night he was alive and asleep on Sylvain’s shoulder, a look of weary peace on his face. Could he really fault Sylvain for daring to believe he would stay?

“You left me anyway,” Sylvain accused. “My last memory of you is your back as you walked away.”

“And they say I was the one who couldn’t let go,” Felix’s voice said.

“Clearly ‘they’ were wrong, since you were the one to knowingly break our promise. You even rubbed it in by coming to me before you wandered off to do it.”

Silence. One, two…five heartbeats passed, and then, “I came that day because I missed you. Seeing you made me…lighter.”

Weird. Spirit-Felix never said things like that before. Sylvain opened his eyes.

A very convincing-looking apparition gazed down on him with painfully familiar eyes. The hair was a few inches longer than he thought it should be, but the color was right, and the face it framed made Sylvain’s throat catch. From there, the dissimilarities increased—the figure wore garb typical of snipers, including a one-sided leather chest guard, bracers, and a belt with a quiver of arrows. The tunic was midnight blue, not quite the brighter Fraldarius shades he was expecting. “Felix?”

“Who else would I be?” He sounded simultaneously acerbic and amused, which were both fair reactions to how confused Sylvain was feeling at that moment. Then he broke into a light chuckle.

“Aaagghh!” Sylvain sprang to his feet, back against the tree.

That only made Felix laugh harder, now coupled with mock exasperation. “Can’t say that was the reaction I was expecting.”

“You’re not Felix! Felix doesn’t _laugh_.” He meant Spirit-Felix, but he still pointed an accusatory finger towards this Maybe-Felix.

“I do laugh, you idiot. Anyone would if they saw that ridiculous face you were making just now.” He instinctively fell back a step as Sylvain grabbed for him, barely but perfectly out of reach, and suddenly all the levity evaporated. It struck him with alarming clarity that he couldn’t take this back; if he let Sylvain touch him, then he’ll have made an irrevocable choice.

Sylvain advanced another step forward, and Felix matched him in retreat. He wasn’t going to win at this dance. “Felix, don’t do this to me. I have to know if you’re real.” Dream, memory, hallucination; all of these made more sense than Felix miraculously alive. But if he’d eaten some bad mushrooms then they must have been potent, because he didn’t care a lick about logic right now.

Felix closed his eyes. There was no point in refusing what he came here for in the first place. Before he could hesitate again, he strode forward and leaned his face against Sylvain’s shoulder. Sylvain’s arms came up painfully slowly as if their owner was afraid they’ll grab empty air even though Felix had a solid arm around his back. But when they closed around his waist, they squeezed him like they would never let him go again.

**Author's Note:**

> Theodore is a collective OC named by the Sylvix Squad Discord server, based off the unnamed uncle mentioned in the game. 
> 
> Thank you @akhikosanada and @feverly for beta'ing, you're so good to me ;_;


End file.
